Chinese New Year Nails

Happy New Year Everyone! This is the year of the Horse and I was SO excited about it that I decided to pay tribute with my nails =)

I put a gold horse on my right pinky and a red horse on my left pinky. Red is good luck for me this year, along with purple and green. I am supposed to stay away from blue this year as it is bad luck... I have to figure out what to do without my blue jeans this year. That's going to be tough. Does that mean I have to dress up everyday this year? I hope not... Anyways back to the nails. The red on top of the gold came out nice but it was hard to see the gold on top of the red. I won't be repurchasing the Konad gold special nail polish. Also as a special note, I haven't been able to put a top coat (the brushing kind) over the nails with the pictures without it smearing. I've even tried it on the second day and it will still smear. What has worked are the top coats that are drops you squeeze onto your nails. I feel like they are not the same as the ones you brush on. But it might be just in my head. Here are the nail polishes I used.

From left to right.
1. butter london's nail foundation is the best looking basecoat I've ever used. Sometimes I'll just wear it because it just makes your nails look so nice in a natural way. It hides surface imperfections like vertical ridges.

2. is the gold Konad special nail polish. I don't like it. It's watery and I will not repurchase. I was hoping so much that the gold would stand out against the red but it didn't =( Lucky for me I only bought a sample size bottle.

3. OPI's An Affair in Red Square. I would describe this polish as a candy apple red bordering metallic- it's a really nice red red, not orangey red- I'm not a fan of those.

4. essie's Shift Power is a watery gold when it's in the bottle but not bad when you put in on your nail. 2 coats will make it pretty solid, 3 is the best. Would I repurchase? Probably not until I've tried other brands.

5. Konad's wine red special nail polish. I likey =) I've used this also for my minion nails post and will
probably use it in other posts. Will definitely repurchase when I run out.

6. OPI's The Impossible, from the Mariah Carey line is pretty cool. I didn't like it alone though. Even two coats, it was more pink than red. I expected it to be more like the bottle which is a nice red. However I made it work with putting An Affair in Red Square underneath. I am happy with the red that came out. I put this liquid sand polish on my left ring finger.

7. Holika Holika's gold glitter nail polish coming all the way from Korea! I had purchased this when I went to Korea many moons ago (but still feels like yesterday). This was way before all the (hard core- not) glitter polishes came out in the states, before crackle was born. I really like this polish. The glitter comes out nice and thick. I would describe the polish texture not as rough as liquid sand but it's definitely not flat as I hope you can tell from the pix. I put this one my ring finger on my right hand.

These are the nail plates I used, all by Konad plus the scraper and stamper

From left to right, top to bottom.
m66 (on my left thumb), s5 (on my pinkies), s9 (on my left pointer, left middle finger, and right middle finger), m23 (on my right thumb and right pointer).

P.S. If you notice there is actually a chinese character on my right pointer. It means bright, so hopefully this year will be a bright one for me =)

Hope you enjoyed my post. If you have any questions feel free to leave it in the comments. Let me know if you did anything special/ creative for this special holiday.